Our client, a young woman, was driving her compact SUV on a county road in El Paso County, Colorado. A young man driving a pickup truck in the opposite direction was going too fast for a curve in the road. He crossed over the center line and sideswiped the driver's side of the young woman's SUV. This caused her to loose control of her SUV, which rolled over into the ditch on the side of the road.

As a result of this accident the young woman developed pain in her left shoulder within a few weeks after the car crash. When conservative medical care, i.e. physical therapy and medications, did not resolve her shoulder problems, her doctors recommended arthroscopic shoulder surgery. The surgery was done about 11 months after the auto collision. The surgery went very well and improved her condition. But she continued to have left shoulder pain and limitations in lifting and reaching overhead with her left arm. Her doctors and physical therapists worked hard trying to improve her left shoulder symptoms, but were not successful in achieving a full recovery. Our client was left with chronic shoulder pain and restrictions on the amount of lifting and left shoulder activity she should do.

The young man's insurance company, a large and well-known, national auto insurer, refused to admit that he was in any way responsible for the collision until just a few weeks before trial. Then they offered to settle for $50,000.

Our client declined this offer. She decided to have one of the auto accident lawyers in our Colorado Springs office take her motor vehicle case to trial before an El Paso County jury. She was advised that juries in El Paso County Colorado are generally not plaintiff-oriented, or known to award large verdicts. But she trusted the trial lawyers at Gaddis, Kin, Herd & Craw, P.C. to do better for her at trial than what the insurance company would offer.

During the trial the young man and his insurance company aggressively maintained that our client's left shoulder problems were not caused by the auto wreck. Instead, they pointed to pre-existing medical conditions she had, and her history of strenuous work, as the cause of her shoulder problems. Our trial lawyers presented expert witnesses who thoroughly evaluated the case and testified that the car accident was the cause of our client's left shoulder injuries.

After a 4 day trial the jury returned with a verdict. Our client won her case and received a jury award of $451,933 in money damages for her shoulder injury and future work limitations. Our lawyers, who are specialists in personal injury trials, then asked the trial judge to award interest on the $451,933 verdict, and, for a court order that the young man's insurance company be required to pay the expenses our client incurred by going to trial. The trial judge awarded interest on the jury verdict as well as trial costs and expenses.

By the time the case was finished, Gaddis, Kin & Herd's highly respected auto accident trial lawyers had recovered more than $650,000 for our client in this successful personal injury claim.

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